“This is a big, multinational corporation. I think Tim has done a better job of recognizing that,” Howe said. “Jobs could remember when it was just three guys in a garage. When you get to be one of the largest companies in the world, you need a different skill set.”

Cook has dramatically expanded the pace of Apple’s product introduction, rolling out in the last few months the iPhone 5, a new iPad, upgrades to the iPod line and the new iPad Mini at a size that Jobs once dismissed as too small.

But Cook also addressed the tone of Apple when he restructured management by dismissing an executive who had been a favourite of Jobs to emphasize collegiality over confrontation.

Such a break has drawn some applause. But it has not been without risks, analysts said. And there have been stumbles, as witnessed by the Apple Maps controversy that raised questions about whether the company’s design instincts had weakened without the heavy hand of Jobs to guide them to perfection.

Analysts also acknowledge the general concern that Cook still may not have the chops to push more new products down the pipeline — electronics that change the way people work and live.

In recent weeks, Apple’s stock has experienced extraordinary volatility amid questions about its slipping market share and prospects for growth. Since reaching an all-time closing high of $702.10 in September, shares have fallen more than 27 per cent, closing Friday at $509.79.

Still, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Cook insisted that the blessing to change direction and chart his own course came from Jobs himself in the weeks before the company’s co-founder died last year.

“He goes, ‘I never want you to ask what I would have done,’ ” Cook recalled. “ ‘Just do what’s right.’ He was very clear.”

Longtime Apple observers said Cook has taken that advice to heart, though at his own pace.

“He didn’t simply want to start as CEO by making radical changes,” said Regis McKenna, the Silicon Valley marketing legend who began working with Apple in its earliest days. “He doesn’t do precipitous acts just to be different. He is thoughtful and methodical. He does things because he thinks they’re right.”

The latest and most surprising change that resulted from Cook’s deliberative process was revealed last week when he announced in the interviews with Bloomberg and NBC News’ Rock Center with Brian Williams that Apple intended to move some of its manufacturing back to the United States.

Cook said the company would invest $100 million to begin building some Mac computers domestically, though he didn’t specify the location. Apple assembles some products in the U.S., but it doesn’t disclose how many or where.

Just as remarkable to many observers were the reasons: Cook said he believed that the company did have an obligation to play a social role above and beyond the goal of fattening the bottom line.

“I do feel we have a responsibility to create jobs,” Cook told Bloomberg. “I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job, but I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs. I think we have a responsibility to give back to the communities, to pick ways that we can do that.”

Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said the amount of manufacturing moved to the U.S. was likely to be small. Though it might bolster Apple’s reputation, he said, that probably wasn’t the main motivation for Cook.

Still, Cook’s comments were unlikely ever to have come from Jobs, who bristled at such notions as the company’s social impact and charitable giving.

When the temperamental Jobs grew so sick he could no longer run Apple last year, he pushed the board to make the more mellow Cook his successor. Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, he did have one reservation about Cook: “Tim’s not a product person, per se.”

That concern remains central to those who worry about Apple’s future.

“Can Tim Cook move fast enough to use the technology in Apple’s labs to avert a disaster? That’s the big question he hasn’t had to answer yet,” said Vivek Wadhwa, vice-president of academics and innovation at Singularity University in Silicon Valley.

In the short term, questions about Cook’s product leadership haven’t stopped him from accelerating the pace of new product launches and upgrades this year, another departure for a company that boasts of focusing on just a few products.

Howe of International Data Corp. said the best way for Cook to calm investors was to continue to deliver stellar results. But Howe said it’s also important that investors and customers continue to get to know the man who carries the burden of Apple’s success.

And that means that Cook, who once told Isaacson he’d “prefer my name never be in the paper,” will have to continue to embrace a larger role as a public figure.

“I think we all miss Steve,” McKenna said. “He was such an unusual dynamic character that it seemed that Tim would always be in his shadow.

“But when you start running a billion-dollar company, you have a responsibility to meet with analysts, journalists and a public to keep the company’s image alive and strong,” he said. “Tim Cook is his own person, and we’re all starting to finally see that.”